2021 River City Roots Fest In Missoula Was Among The Biggest Ever

This year, I finally got to head out to River City Roots Fest - I've lived in Missoula for three years now, but circumstances kept getting in the way where I wasn't able to attend the festival. But it seems like I made it out for a good one - after having to take 2020 off thanks to COVID, Downtown Missoula is saying that this year's festivals could be one of the biggest ever.

That's at least according to the amount of money the festival brought in this year. And you may be thinking - well, wait a minute, this is a free festival. How exactly do they make money?

Well, keep reading this paragraph and I'll tell you! Of course there's tons of merch and other stuff that Downtown Missoula sells during the festival, but apparently the organization also receives 20 percent of all earnings from every vendor, and they're indicating that some vendors pulled in over $10,000 over the course of just two days. You take that number and start applying it to all the vendors that were there, that's a lot of money that you're going to start counting up.

We don't know the final numbers yet, although attendance was estimated to be around 13,000 people throughout Friday and Saturday (kinda crummy weather during the day on Friday meant most of them were there for Saturday).

And I personally had a blast at River City Roots this year - it's such a great event that brings the community together and really allows us to celebrate. I'm sure I'll be back in 2022, and I can only imagine the festival could get even bigger next year.